TO WHERE I AM NOW

Sessions, sessions, sessions. It was sessions all day for me today. Sunday is usually a big sessions day for me. Tony in Sydney, Doug in Wappinger Falls, Brian in Florida and Mike in New Orleans. Just four today (it was six last Sunday and five so far for next Sunday). I guess Sunday is a day to do this if you work all week and have to deal with the commute, dinner, family, domestic stuff and then getting up early the next morning to do it all again. The weekends must be great! Ha ha, us musician types don’t see the weekends in the same way. If you’re on tour, Friday/Saturday are usually the biggest nights and when you’re not, the significance of the days is not as acute because routine is not the way of life. So for most people, Saturday/Sunday is the free time to get things done, have some fun, catch up with friends, hang with the family, indulge yourself in that secret project in the shed or perhaps speak to me. The sessions are great, communicating about music, analyzing what needs to be done, evolving, studying the creative process and then unleashing the results on the universe. Long may they continue and let me tell you watching the sessioneers progress is inspiring. Also let me tell you, it’s not a competition and if you do this with me and feel that you don’t have the time to put the work in then that’s fine. Loving music is enough, it’s supposed to be fun.

Sad to hear Kenny Rogers died. When I was a kid he sang one of my favourite songs, Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town. Before he became a mega country star sensation he was in a band called The First Edition. This song reached No.6 in the USA and No.2 in the UK in 1969, I was 11 at the time. Younger folks may remember the version by ex Heavy Metal Kids singer Gary Holton and Norwegian Casino Steel, released in 1981, a No.1 single in Norway in 1982. Like his super famous hit, Lucille, Rogers knew how to pick a song with a heartbreaking lyric. Ruby deals with a Vietnam vet returning paralyzed trying to convince his wife not to go out on the town to look for a lover, like Lucille, really tragic. The song was written by Country legend Mel Tillis and recorded initially by another country legend, Waylon Jennings. A slew of other country stars have recorded it. Oddly it was also recorded by Leonard Nimoy and German Synth Pop duo Wolfsheim. Then there’s the other language versions – Nana Mouskouri anyone (one of my dad’s faves)? RIP Kenny, I hear you were a good man.

Our friend and local folky singer-songwriter Libby came into the studio today. She’s been trying to get in here for weeks and today it finally happened. She had a lovely song called In This Game. Olivia played violin on it and I ran in between sessions with half an hour to spare and put a solo on it using Dare’s Gibson. Libby is a gem, when she’s not being creative and spreading kindness, she’s raising money for the less fortunate. You can download the song here and check her out on her bandcamp page that Olivia just set up for her.

I’ve been trying to avoid the news today and trying to forget that there’s an outside. I was thinking about the pharaohs and that when they died they were often buried in sealed rooms with their handmaidens and slaves to accompany them as they journeyed into the afterlife. I wondered if they actually had to be dead, too, to do that or they were allowed to accompany them when they were still alive? I guess the concept of we’re all equal in death if not in life had little meaning in those barbaric times when some were gods and others were slaves. Nowadays some people out there still believe this bullshit.

I was playing records tonight by Freedom (good segue). I guess they became little too Hard Rock for some as 1971 approached with their Through The Years album, but initially they sounded a bit more like a cross between a Beat group and Creedence. On the Freedom At Last album (1970) there’s a cool version of The Beatles’ Cry Baby Cry and The Zombies’ Time Of The Season. Drummer Bobby Harrison was the singer and leader of the group, Ray Royer initially played guitar, they were both members of Procol Harum (Royer played guitar on A Whiter Shade Of Pale). They made one soundtrack album in 1969 for an Italian Movie, Nero Su Bianco (Black On White) directed by avant-garde director Tinto Brass before Harrison completely changed the line-up to Roger Saunders on guitar and Walter Monaghan on bass. By some miracle I have Roger Saunders’ album from 1972. I only ever saw it once. According to the sleeve notes Freedom were still together when the solo album was released but they broke up the same year and Harrison went on to form Snafu with ex Juicy Lucy guitarist Mick Moody, who ended up in Whitesnake would you believe.

In the sixties Keith West was in a band called Tomorrow with Steve Howe who would later join the classic Yes line-up and Twink from The Pretty Things who would later join Pink Fairies. After Tomorrow West had a solo hit with the sixties classic Excerpt From A Teenage Opera. What happened next? Well, he made an album, Wherever My Love Goes (1974), for the German label Kuckuck and then formed the band Moonrider in 1975 before disappearing from commercial sight. The solo album is pretty tame and why Punk Rock was necessary but once he was what Punk Rock was but ten years earlier as a Psychedelic hipster with his finger on the pulse of the vital music of the day. The old people were once the young people.

I also played two albums by Jess Roden’s Bronco, Country Home (1970) and Ace Of Sunlight (1971). Roden had left The Alan Bown Set and after these two albums would go solo. They were some kind of English country version of Free, not as consistently Bluesy. The guitarist was Robbie Blunt who showed up with Michael Des Barres in Silverhead and later played with Robert Plant on those initial post Zep solo albums. What I love about the post sixties and pre-Punk seventies albums is the Rock warmth. Especially the drum sounds and somehow even the shrieking and screaming sounded cosy.

I had an idea tonight that I could add a song to the blog that I’ve either co-written with a project or a song of my own. There’s so many recorded songs out there that it’s hard to know where to start, for me or for you. The saving of the environment will continue to be high on the priority list once we get through the virus fight, as we will, we must, we really have to change the world.

 

Running Through Your Fingers

I believe in wondrous things
I can hear the planets sing
And they glow in reds and blues
And they’re mad at their abuse

And we limp to the future
Bandaged and bleeding

Challenged by the need for sacrifice
Responsibility and such
But when you look at what we’ve got
Is it really that much

Can’t you see
It’s running through your fingers
Running through your fingers
Just take your hands and stop it
Running through your fingers

If I must, I’ll spell it out
Who on Earth could harbour doubt
Can’t you see that just one soul
Is a piece in the crucial whole

I can’t make a difference
Someone else will fix it

When simple acts of habit
Are all you need to change
Just rein in a little bit
Is that so hard to arrange

Can’t you see
It’s running through your fingers
Running through your fingers
Just take your hands and stop it
Running through your fingers

(Willson-Piper/Mason)
Noctorum – Honey Mink Forever (2011)